Thursday, May 28, 2015

This diy comes from www.twogirlsbeingcrafty.blogspot.com . A very cool idea to do with all of that extra scrap booking paper lying around. Either do one for the winter holidays or for the up coming spring season. Enjoy!

Scrap Paper Tree Centerpiece Tutorial

Hi there! I'm Sharon from Two Girls Being Crafty, and I am so delighted to be today's guest blogger on Everyday Mom Ideas! Thank you so much, Julia, for having us. My co-blogger, Tristin, and I create fun and inexpensive crafts that anyone could do. Our goal is to inspire. So come check us o
Today I would like to share with you all our newest craft. It's a fun and easy DIY Spring scrapbook paper tree. Tristin and I both love scrapbook paper. We love the large variety of gorgeous patterns to choose from and the lovely, convenient low prices (so you can indulge when needed). But the funny thing is, neither of us like to scrapbook. We are constantly searching for new and innovative ways to use scrapbook paper. Today's feature project is one of them.

This simple project uses scrapbook paper leaves to create a bright and cheery Spring ambiance for your home. You could also use these beautiful trees in a wedding, baby shower, bridal shower, birthday party... the possibilities are endless!

What You Will Need:

Scrapbook paper
Branches
Floral Wire (I used 24 gauge wire)
Glue (You can use scrapbook or tacky glue, but I just used good ole Elmers)
Scissors
Cardboard/cardstock/chipboard
Vase or Pot to place your branches in
Newspaper

The awesome thing is - you probably already have most of these supplies on hand. I only had to purchase the floral wire for a little over $1 (with a coupon). What an inexpensive way to bring Spring into your home!Let's Get Started:

First, drag out your unseemly healthy assortment of scrapbook paper scraps. If you don't (yet) have a unreasonable amount of scrapbook paper (and everyone should), then just head over to your local craft store - Jo-Ann, Hobby Lobby, or Michaels and pick out your favorites.

Cut out a template of your leaf from the cardboard (you can also use chipboard or card-stock). I used two different sizes of leaves - one small and the other a lot larger. Try to make the leaves as symmetrical as possible (which I did not realize until later). This will help with pairing up a back and front leaf later on. Using your template, cut out as many leaves as you want. Cut them in even numbers because, again, you will be pairing them up later on.

Take your floral wire and cut strips anywhere from 5"-8" long. I know that's a big range, but I'm taking into account the different size leaves. If it's a larger leaf, you will want a few extra inches of wire.

Lay down some newspaper next to your workspace. Take one of your leaves and put a thin strip of glue down the center. Place a piece of wire on the glue. Find a leaf of the same size and same scrapbook paper (or different paper- this is your project!) and place it on top of the glue, sandwiching the wire and forming a "vein" down the center of the leaf. Place your newly made leaves on the newspaper. Keep going until you've made all of your leaves.

Now for the fun part! Start placing your leaves on your tree by wrapping the floral wire around a branch. You can arrange them in a natural way (as pictured above)...

...or make them funky.

And you're done! This project is so easy. You can make a huge tree or just make a small, simple one. Do ten of them for an event, or just create one for your humble abode. Either way, take this idea and run with it. You can create some Spring magic using only a few supplies!

On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month every year, Chinese communities worldwide celebrate the Duanwu Jie festival, which commemorates the death of the Chinese patriot/poet Qu Yuan.
As a rival state conquered his home kingdom, Qu Yuan committed suicide, drowning himself in the Miluo river on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

His countrymen paddled swiftly out to the middle of the river to retrieve his body, while others threw packets of rice in the water to distract the fish from eating the poet's body.
These two acts, it is said, are the origin of the festival's two main preoccupations - the glutinous rice dumplings known as zongzi, and the dragon boat races.

Dragon Boat Racing in Modern Times

Dragon boat racing, despite its roots in ancient tradition, are as exciting a sport as they come. Two or more boats compete against each other in heats spanning distances of about 1 1/4 mile (2000 meters) or less.
The boats conform to traditional designs, and are extremely eye-catching. Each boat is mounted with a dragon's head and tail, finely carved to meet the traditional Chinese dragon appearance (in case you didn't know, a Chinese dragon has an ox's head, a deer's antlers, a horse's mane, and a fish's tail).

Each boat is crewed by up to twenty paddlers, facing the front of the boat (as opposed to Western rowing sports, where the rower faces the rear). A drummer sits in front of the boat, facing the rowers, dictating the rhythm for the row team. A sweep, or tiller, sits aft, steering the boat.
Strength and endurance are necessary, but not sufficient, for success. Dragon boat racing, as a sport, demands the closest teamwork possible from teams that want to get through the finish line first.

Dragon Boat Racing in Penang, Malaysia

In Penang, Malaysia, the dragon boat races are especially famous. The region's first dragon boat race was held here in 1956, on the occasion of the 100th founding anniversary of Georgetown.

May Day on May 1st, is an ancient Northern Hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures.

Traditional May Day Celebrations

May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.
As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either changed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were merged with or replaced by new Christian holidays as with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and All Saint's Day. In the twentieth and continuing into the twenty-first century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival again.

Origins

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Various Neopagan groups celebrate reconstructed (to varying degrees) versions of these customs on May 1st.
The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer. In the Roman Catholic tradition, May is observed as Mary's month, and in these circles May Day is usually a celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this connection, in works of art, school skits, and so forth, Mary's head will often be adorned with flowers in a May crowning. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of "May baskets," small baskets of sweets and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbours' doorsteps.

Europe

Great Britain

Roodmas was a Christian Mass celebrated in England at midnight on May 1.
Traditional British May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen and celebrations involving a Maypole. Much of this tradition derives from the pagan Anglo-Saxon customs held during "Þrimilci-mōnaþ" (the Old English name for the month of May meaning Month of Three Milkings) along with many Celtic traditions.
May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. May Day is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility and revelry with village fetes and community gatherings. Since the reform of the Catholic Calendar, May 1st is the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, the patron saint of workers. Seeding has been completed by this date and it was convenient to give farm labourers a day off. Perhaps the most significant of the traditions is the Maypole, around which traditional dancers circle with ribbons.
The May Day bank holiday, on the first Monday in May, was traditionally the only one to affect the state school calendar, although new arrangements in some areas to even out the length of school terms mean that the Good Friday and Easter Monday bank holidays, which vary from year to year, may also fall during term time. The May Day bank holiday was created in 1978. In February 2011, the UK Parliament was reported to be considering scrapping the bank holiday associated with May Day, replacing it with a bank holiday in October, possibly co-inciding with Trafalgar Day (celebrated on 21 October), to create a "United Kingdom Day".

May Day 1904

May Day was abolished and its celebration banned by puritan parliaments during the Interregnum, but reinstated with the restoration of Charles II in 1660. 1 May 1707 was the day the Act of Union came into effect, joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
In Oxford, it is traditional for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6:00 am to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night's celebrations. It is then thought to be traditional for some people to jump off Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell. However this has actually only been fashionable since the 1970s, possibly due to the presence of TV cameras. In recent years, the bridge has been closed on 1 May to prevent people from jumping, as the water under the bridge is only 2 feet (61 cm) deep and jumping from the bridge has resulted in serious injury in the past. There are still people who insist on climbing the barriers and leaping into the water, causing themselves injury.
In Durham, students of the University of Durham gather on Prebend's Bridge to see the sunrise and enjoy festivities, folk music, dancing, madrigal singing and a barbecue breakfast. This is an emerging Durham tradition, with patchy observance since 2001.Whitstable, Kent, hosts a good example of more traditional May Day festivities, where the Jack in the Green festival was revived in 1976 and continues to lead an annual procession of morris dancers through the town on the May Bank Holiday. A separate revival occurred in Hastings in 1983 and has become a major event in the town calendar. A traditional Sweeps Festival is performed over the May bank holiday in Rochester, Kent, where the Jack in the Green is woken at dawn on 1 May by Morris dancers.

ALWAYS SOMETHING GREAT!!

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A LITTLE BIO FOR YOU

I am passionate about Halloween and Christmas. Many nights spent in the lab making and creating new props and decorations. I have been married for 25 years and have teenage twins (a boy and girl). I like 80's rock, all kinds of sports,thriller and action movies. I also moonlight as a pastry chef/baker.